Complex & compound sentences
Complex sentences
Good writing should have a good mixture of sentence lengths. Longer sentences demonstrate control of language and are more interesting to read. Short sentences can be used to make a dramatic point.
- Use complex noun phrases
The rise in the number of unemployed people in my country has lead to many problems. | There have been a number of difficulties with the new system.
- Use relative clauses
We had a few concerns which we would like to raise with you now. | There are many people nowadays who would like to take a month off to go travelling.
- Use connectors
Despite the many difficulties, we felt the weekend was an overall success.
- Add description with adjectives and adverbs
We had an absolutely amazing time visiting the spectacular mountains and admiring the beautiful scenery. | We walked hurriedly past the ancient wall to the empty fields outside the city.
Compound sentences: punctuation
Compound sentences are those that consist of two or more simple sentences. Similarly, compound nouns and compound verbs consist of two or more parallel nouns or verbs. Compound sentences can be joined by either a semicolon or a comma plus a coordinating conjunction
- Comma plus coordinating conjunction
Sentence 1, and Sentence 2 or yet but Washington is the nation's top cherry producer, and farmers in the state grew a record 85,000 tons of cherries last summer.
sentence 1, sentence 2, and sentence 3 or yet but
People like to eat sweet cherries, bakers put them in their pies, and jam-makers cannot get enough of them.
In formal academic text in general, according to Quirk et al. (1985), compound sentences may be of limited value (!), and most are found in informal prose. These authors also noted that formal written discourse highly prefers the use of comma in compound sentences joined by conjunctions. The use of commas without conjunctions results in one of the most frequent sentence-boundary errors found in L2 writing, usually referred to as run-on sentences (or comma splices).
*The new advances in technology in the 20th century are amazing, we now have the World Wide Web to connect people for communication, scientists have invented new AIDS drugs.
Run-ons of this type are relatively easy to fix by simply inserting a coordinating conjunction at the sentence boundary after the comma:
The new advances in technology in the 20th century are amazing, we now have the World Wide Web to connect people for communication, and scientists have invented new AIDS drugs.
- Semicolon
Semicolons are used without coordinating conjunctions, but they can conjoin only fairly short sentences.
sentence 1: sentence 2 Books are sold here; software and magazines are next door.
Semicolons can also be used with sentence transitions (conjunctive adverbs), such as however, thus, or therefore.
sentence 1; however, sentence 2 thus, therefore, Byron may not be the most refined poet; however, he does have an uncanny talent for ...
It is useful to mention that these two patterns largely have the same power to conjoin short simple sentences and mark their boundaries. However, their power is less than that of a period.